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French voters threaten to shun EU treaty (Guardian re: Parisien poll)

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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:19 PM
Original message
French voters threaten to shun EU treaty (Guardian re: Parisien poll)
Jon Henley in Paris
Saturday March 19, 2005
The Guardian

A new opinion poll has shown that for the first time a majority of French voters are opposed to the EU constitution.

According to the survey, published in the popular daily Le Parisien, 51% of French voters who have decided how they will vote in the May 29 referendum on the treaty are planning to reject it, with 49% saying yes.

Fifty-three percent, however, say they are tempted either to abstain or to spoil their ballot paper.

Most EU-watchers agree that rejection in France would spell the end of the treaty, plunging Europe into institutional paralysis and setting the European project back by 15 years. <snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1441381,00.html
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:22 PM
Response to Original message
1. I wonder how this will play out?
There's a lot of time between now and the vote.

I'm hoping for a strong EU!
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Dirk39 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:30 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Hello from Europe,
the problem for many on the left with the EU-constitution isn't Europe, it's the neoliberal thatcherite Character of the constitution. What nearly all the people within the EU are experiencing during the last years is an attack against the welfare state and social rights of the workers and the unemployed people. Lower wages, longer working hours, a hire and fire mentality. And the constitution will make this even worse.
The EU of this constitution is an Europe of corporate power, not of the people.

Dirk
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:40 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Aha! Thanks for the insight!
Sorry I wasn't aware of this..Well, maybe France will hold out for a better constitution?

Sounds like the EU is taking lessons from the fascists in the US.
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makhno Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:36 PM
Response to Reply #1
4. Screw that
The EU has deteriorated to being nothing but a neo-liberal gleam in the eye of the European bourgeiosie. Take France - the workers, the peasants, anyone who produces anything of value gets screwed with the European directives on a balanced budget or the Common Agricultural Policy. Social progress achieved in any individual European country prior to the inherently undemocratic EU era is laid to rest on the altar of a cheap pan-European labor force fulfilling the immediate needs of global capital.

Force Ouvrière fights on. No to a neo-liberal Europe!
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Cha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:42 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Thanks..I sit corrected!
I hadn't investigated and just thought the EU would be a constitution with strong Democratic Principles.
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makhno Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 08:14 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. Check it out, it might be wrong
I'm no expert, but I haven't seen anything the EU has done for the people. It always seems like the rhetoric is about "what can be done cheapest and where" rather than "how can we expand the social gains made in countries like France and Germany to the rest of the continent."

In other words, EU is the super-NAFTA from across the pond.
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Mass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 08:18 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Let's hope that other unions than FO will fight
I will be more confident with CGT and CFDT.
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burrowowl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-19-05 12:45 AM
Response to Reply #8
13. Me too!
FO was started by the U$ to counteract the other unions, when I was in France I was CFDT.
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Mass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-19-05 01:15 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. Well it was not started by them
but it is largely founded by them.
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 07:31 PM
Response to Original message
3. 51%vs. 49% - sound familiar? nt
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Mass Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 08:19 PM
Response to Reply #3
9. That is consistent with the two last election
Edited on Fri Mar-18-05 08:19 PM by Mass
where Chirac's coalition was beaten with this type of results.

People are opposing Chirac as well as well as the constitution.
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Maple Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 08:30 PM
Response to Original message
10. This is not opposition to the EU
just the current draft of the constitution.

It can, and will be changed

There will be lots of votes on lots of things, before they get all their ducks lined up, but the EU remains.
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rayofreason Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 09:00 PM
Response to Original message
11. no to EU
Why would anyone vote to establish a distant bureaucracy that has little or no accountability? Are the French wising up? Look for the exit and run!
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Rex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Mar-18-05 09:30 PM
Response to Original message
12. Well that didn't last very long!
My money was on the French having a problem first.
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Pooka Fey Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Mar-19-05 02:36 AM
Response to Reply #12
15. That's because the French are smart enough to read the fine print.
Edited on Sat Mar-19-05 02:38 AM by Pooka Fey
Which is why everybody in the world is NOW saying "OMG! France was right!" about opposing the war in Iraq from the very beginning.
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